I was excited this week to be learning and reading about TPACK because I have quite a bit of background knowledge within this model. Denise Schmidt-Crawford taught us about TPACK in CI 201 and my reading endorsement technology course. Last semester I utilized TPACK in a school board presentation that I completed about the use of SMART boards in the classroom and with our readings this week about moral and ethics within instructional technology had be thinking about the importance of IT and what it "ought" to be not what is it, as Pojman kept referring to in his article, but anyway, back to TPACK, I am happy to have had so many professors cover this model and I am happy that I was introduced to it as early as I was because if this was the first time learning or seeing TPACK, I would feel extremely overwhelmed because of breadth of information and everything that we know as educators put into one Venn Diagram with multiple pieces. In Dr. Nadolny's class we examined TPACK and we evaluated where we are, currently, as educators within the TPACK model. I feel pretty comfortable with individual pieces of the model, but combining them is a special task as an educator. I am by no means an expert on TPACK but the model makes sense to me and helps me to reflect upon which aspects I feel comfortable with and which parts of my job, the same as parts of the model, I need to learn more about and strategies I can use in the classroom. I think that TPACK connects with the paradigm shift with IT because of the technological pedagogy piece of the puzzle that was missing before TPACK.
When reading, listening and watching information about the paradigm shift within IT I began to think about how technology has influenced and created major paradigm shifts within communist countries and countries who, before technology, were informed through their government and were shielded from things happening outside their country and in the world. The internet has created a paradigm shift in countries such as Egypt, especially within the last year, with the riots and turmoil because of Facebook and information that they have received. Because of the internet, the world has been brought into countries that before were shielded from information that the governments deemed unnecessary and that has caused changes in thinking and many revolutions throughout the world.
I felt as though the topics this week were all intertwined together, leading into moral philosophy and ethics within IT a the paradigm shift with technology in education. In my school district the paradigm shift of incorporating more technology into the classrooms has been a revolution that some educators have not come on board with, as I have heard of many schools having the same type of situation. I think that the educators who are not on board with the technology have moral and ethical reasons, within their educational philosophy to disagree with technology in the classroom. The article by Pojman had me thinking about the gray area the lies with morals and ethics. For example, morally speeding is acceptable if an emergency is taking place, so someone might not be given a ticket because of the emergency, or people who say that are going to keep a promise and then don't because it endagers someone. This gray area is everywhere throughout our lives and in education. We make exceptions for students based upon their background, behavior and needs. After thinking about this gray area I began to think about technology and how it is currently used and then what Pojman keeps saying, how it ought to be. We are constantly having conversations in my school district about how technology "ought" to be used in classroom, but that is definitely not what "is" happening in my district. I have had a lot of discussions with peers about technology still being a consequence and taken away from students when they misbehave, but if we are using technology to enhance instruction in ways that it cannot happen without the technology, why in the world would we take it away. I always like to show fellow educators the viral video comparing pencils and computers. It makes so much sense to me, but again it goes back to how we ought to be using IT and how we are using IT. My opinion just from the surface learning and thinking about moral and ethical philosophy for IT is that IT ought to be used for more than a Google search or a huge encyclopedia and a source of knowledge, it ought to be used to provide students with learning that could not happen without the technology. I think that what "ought" be happening with IT is a common conversation throughout the world in many, many schools. Questions like What is best for our students? How does IT enhance students achievement, or does it? We don't know the consequences completely of the recent changes to IT with students, which leads into the learning that took place with Critical Theory, which I had a difficult time keeping an open mind about, but I did learn about Critical Theory and how it can be important in thinking morally and ethically about IT.
While reading the articles by Nichols, I found myself literally saying out loud "hmmm". I understand Critical Theory on the surface, but there were a lot of ideas that Nichols discussed that were hard for me to read because I am very optimistic and I don't like to think of the negative, but I do understand the importance of the theory and people that bring up points such as the ones presented in the readings. One that I appreciated from Thursday's article was in the last paragraph of the article, "...there is nothing wrong with liking or advocating ed tech, it is good to find better ways to do things. Nevertheless it is important that better should include qualities of being ethical and more humanizing." I like this statement and I agree with it but I am the advocate for ed tech, but I appreciate the people on the other side, because we need each other to make sure that IT is morally and ethically affecting our students in appropriate ways.
My final thoughts for the week are about my favorite and most influential thinking that took place this week in the"The Gods Must Be Crazy" video. My takeaway from this video was the statement about how civilized men adapted the world to them and the natives adapted to the elements of the desert. I made a connection the previous statement with technology. Education has adapted technology to to fit into the education world and its daily happenings and in other situations, technology has adapted education. For example, with iPads, Apple didn't forsee them being so popular within education but the educational world adapted the iPad in order to make it IT and in other situations technology has changed the school day from making things simpler like attendance and sharing information and also teaching and learning looks very different because of technology. Again, connecting back to Pojman, I am not sure if teaching and learning "ought" to adapt to technology, I think that it should be the other way around where technology is having to adapt in order to fit into education and provide students with additional learning. Technology has impacted society, but technology is different based on culture and experience. The Coke bottle was the technology to the natives but civilized people had technologies such as computers, alarms, vehicles etc. and the two worlds were very different. In our global society the cultures, moral and ethics are being blended due to technology because in many situations people have access to similar information and learning, which wasn't possible without technology. I think that generations are changing faster and faster and are more different because of technology and what we are exposed to. One more connection that I have to share about the impact technology has on society just came to me. At the Iowa 1:1 Conference in April I had the opportunity to attend a Keynote presented by Angela Maiers and Kevin Honeycutt was a surprise guest speaker and Angela's keynote address was about literacy for today's world involving symbols that are very different and if you don't know how to read them you can be illiterate. For example, tweets are new reading for some people, but not for our students and a lot of people in the room couldn't read the tweet she presented and some could, so within one room we had illiterate people and literate people, based upon the tweet presented. This is a major way that technology has impacted society in the way that we read and get information.
This week had a lot of connections weaving among the topics and I learned new things as well as added to some background knowledge all resulting in some great reflection and ideas that I have about technology and instructional technology with the moral philosophy, paradigm shifts, critical theory and TPACK.
No comments:
Post a Comment